


push, pull, center

by everylemon



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Friendship, Friendship is Still Magic, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Ignis strategizes, brief mention of dead bodies, this was held up for ages because i couldn't think of a quiche pun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-14 07:40:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29539038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everylemon/pseuds/everylemon
Summary: When Ignis notices Noct struggling, he strategizes. With any luck, it will pay off before Noct manages to get himself killed.For Morgan, who requested "Ignis caring for and comforting a hurt/sick/sad Noct." I got two out of three in there for you :)
Relationships: Noctis Lucis Caelum & Ignis Scientia
Comments: 8
Kudos: 40





	push, pull, center

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Morgan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morgan/gifts).



It doesn’t take long for Ignis to notice Noctis struggling.

It would be hard not to, frankly, given the nature of being on the road together. They’re all together, all the time. Moods happen. Friction happens. It gets forgiven quickly most of the time, often joked off, sometimes just waited out. They need to be a team and so they are, even if Ignis would butcher a garula for the chance to wake up alone and spend a morning reading the newspaper in his own (clean and tidy) apartment.

Ah. Well. He would do more than that to ever be back in his apartment again.

But in any case, it’s obvious that Noct is off. They all have their moments of struggling with the weight of everything — especially had at first, of course — but it’s been a few days and Noct isn’t bouncing back.

Case in point: Gladio stretches in the backseat of the Regalia and says, “Think we need to hit a haven soon, if Princess Buttercup can handle a night away from a mattress.”

“S’fine,” Noct replies, off-hand and . . . sincere? It’s a throw-away comment. It shouldn’t matter. But Noct’s not rolling his eyes with resentment (real or feigned, depending on his mood) or dishing it right back to Gladio with a grin, and Ignis just adds it to the list of Things That are Not Quite Right. 

Gladio doesn’t seem to notice. He starts talking with Ignis about where they can stop, and they settle on camping at Galdin.

Noct’s clearly trying, and somewhat succeeding, to come across as fine at the campfire that night. But Ignis doesn’t miss the dark circles under his eyes, even in the firelight. He’s looking for tells now, and he finds them: jiggling his knee nervously, robotically throwing in comments he might be expected to make, staring at the fire with blank eyes. It’s incongruous with the soothing sound of ocean waves crashing on the beach, the smell of salt in the air, the cool night that has Ignis sighing in relief after sweating steadily through muggy heat all day. 

Ignis considers.

When Noct and Prompto get up to trade watching each others’ back against daemons while they use the facilities (otherwise known as a bush, and isn’t camping _such fun_ ), he stands to collect the dinner plates.

“It seems as though Noctis might benefit from a rigorous workout,” he observes to Gladio.

Gladio rolls his neck like he’s tossing that around in his mind. It never takes much for the Shield to catch his drift. Or vice versa. “Good call.”

The next morning, Gladio somehow manages to get Noct out running on the beach, which is either its own small miracle or a testament to Gladio’s uncanny ability to push Noct out of his own head and get him _doing_ something.

Sometimes he overdoes it, but it’s good for Noct, usually. Like this morning. They come back tired, sweaty, and laughing in the morning sunshine. Noct seems looser and more at ease than he has in a week, like he might after a well-timed sparring session with Gladio back home.

Ignis almost regrets it when they pile into the car and Noct’s improved mood translates into him and Prompto bombastically debating which installment in some terrible low-budget sci-fi series they love is best, with way too much shouting and flailing.

Almost, but not quite.

He just turns up the radio a little louder.

* * *

By the time they reach Lestallum two days later with some ridiculous photo requested by Vyv — who, at least, pays well for them to traipse halfway across the Lucian continent — Noct’s folding back in on himself again.

Ignis had tried asking outright how he was holding up at camp last night. And Noct had shut his expression down so fast that the “Fine, Specs, you worry too much,” he’d followed it with had quite the opposite of its intended effect.

But Ignis had let it go, sensing it wasn’t time to push.

Honestly, getting better at knowing when to drop a concern had been transformative in his relationship with Noctis. He’d learned through hard experience that Noct could look like nothing was getting through to him, when really, _everything_ was, exponentially. Noct’s teen years had been marked by Ignis pushing and pushing, not understanding why Noct didn’t so much as react until he suddenly blew up. In retrospect, it had never actually been suddenly, though. The building pressure tended to explode once Noct could no longer repress it beneath a facade of indifference.

If it’s not time to push, a different strategy may be in order.

As soon as they arrive at the now-familiar Leville, before Noctis even finishes pulling the sheets over his head, Ignis asks Gladio to accompany him to the weapons vendor.

“Sure,” Gladio agrees, and they toss their bags down and head right back out.

From the hallway, Ignis can hear Prompto, right on cue: “Dude, let’s go get kebabs again, I’m starving.”

He can’t hear Noct’s response, but both of the younger men are gone by the time he and Gladio come back, and they don’t reappear until much later that evening.

But they’re relaxed, still making jokes with the barest pretense of trying not to wake him or Gladio; Gladio snores right through it all.

Ignis stays awake to hear that Noct falls asleep without the half-hour of tossing and turning he’s been subjecting them all to lately.

The next morning, Ignis and Gladio are treated to Prompto and Noctis interrupting each other for the entirety of breakfast while they try to tell a story from last night. It ultimately ends with neither he nor Gladio having any idea what was so funny.

“Guess you had to be there,” Noct grins when it’s clear this is going nowhere and it’s time to focus on the next hunt.

Gladio is master of pushing the Prince out of his head when he needs it, but no one can pull Noct out of a funk like Prompto Argentum.

* * *

It’s a few days later, and Ignis is becoming worried that this is either something permanent or Noct’s heading for a breakdown.

He comes out of his melancholy for snatches of time that make everything feel back to normal, but then sinks right back in. He’s not sleeping much at all, and eating even less. All the tells that were there around the campfire in Galdin remain. Everything is telling Ignis that something is wrong.

Before he can figure out how to fix it, they take on a hunt that’s just slightly above their normal pay-grade.

Noct says it will be _fine_ in a terse voice as they review the posting; Ignis considers for a long time before assenting. They need the gil, and they’ve been improving steadily. They can afford to stock up on curatives in case things go sideways with the coeurls.

Things do go sideways with the couerls.

Having seen it coming is cold comfort when they’re all caught in the area of a thunder spell, and the blinding wrongness of that is a sensation Ignis could gladly go without experiencing ever again.

While their limbs are still seizing uselessly, Gladio takes a hit that requires an elixir when Prompto is able to move his fingers again, and after that it’s . . . messy.

That’s before an Imperial drop-ship arrives.

And also before the second one follows.

If it had just been axemen, it would have been one thing, but no. Uncannily quick Magitek assassins dart into their blind spots, sniper bullets are cracking into the ground, and the couerls just won’t die. 

It's chaos, and they’re tiring. Taking bad hits. Going through curatives like candy. They’ve been at it long enough that the shadows are growing long in anticipation of dusk and the usual banter has dried up. The one coeurl left is targeting them and MTs indiscriminately, so they leave it for last by silent agreement, try to hack through the Imperials.

And then Prompto’s down, skidding across the dirt with the force of a coeurl's blow from behind.

Noct warps from across the field to help him the gunner up and hand him an elixir, and then there's an explosion of blades of crystal blue, and the armiger’s contents swirl around him.

The sight sends relief flooding through Ignis — they have a fighting chance, now — even as he jams a dagger into the neck of the MT assassin he’s been dueling for far too long. He doesn’t stop to admire the deadly grace with which Noctis channels the power of his ancestors. Some other time.

The armiger lasts longer than Ignis can ever remember, but when the magic stops, it cuts. Noct crashes out of the air and lands dazed on his knees

But the tide has turned definitively, and Ignis thinks they’ve got it now. Gladio manages to take out three troopers in a single swing like a human cyclone.

And then, with whiskers glowing in the fading daylight, the remaining coeurl unleashes a final, desperate attack.

The death-spell hits Noct in the chest. He drops again, but the distance from his knees to the ground seizes Ignis’s heart with more fear than the fall from the sky had.

He’s running, but Gladio’s closer; he phoenix downs Noct and pulls him back from the brink.

That fiery jolt to the system tides Noct over as they deal with the rest of the MTs. When the battle is truly over, though, he sinks to his hands and knees, gasping for air.

Ignis cracks a potion over the bloody gash in his own side and makes sure he reaches Noct first, this time.

He waits until the Prince has caught his breath and sat back on his heels. “Sorry,” Noct mutters, running a shaking hand through his hair. “Messed that up.”

“Let’s get to a haven before night finishes falling.” He holds out a hand to help Noct up, and when Noct sways upon standing, he slings Noct’s arm over his shoulders to support his weight.

It must be bad, because Noct doesn’t protest, just lets him half-drag him to the haven while Prompto and Gladio take the lead and rear, respectively. It’s not a long walk, but Ignis is taking more and more of Noct’s weight as they go.

When they arrive and Ignis makes no motion to do anything except hover near where Noct’s kneeling, the other men read the room: he isn’t leaving Noct’s side anytime soon. As soon as the the tent’s up, Noct grunts something like gratitude and stumbles into a sleeping bag. Ignis can hear Gladio firing up the kerosene (likely to boil water for instant noodles) and the clang of steel as Prompto pulls weapons from the armiger to clean.

“Noct,” he says, earning another grunt from inside the sleeping bag. “We’ve got to get you cleaned up, at least a little.”

Noct sits up, blearily, and lets Ignis clean the blood and grime from his face and hands with a wet towel, lets him ease his jacket off. It’ll have to do for now.

Noct lays back down but doesn’t close his eyes. Getting revived is never easy, after that initial manic energy subsides. And that’s after everything else.

“Not my best day,” Noct mutters, the closest he’ll get to admitting he’s embarrassed.

“It doesn’t seem as though you’ve felt your best for a week or so, now,” Ignis observes.

Noct exhales, lets his eyes slide closed.

And Ignis waits.

It’s maybe ten minutes later when Noct finally speaks. "Do you remember the Hunters in Meldacio, talking about that family that got caught out at night?”

Ignis thinks back, then nods. A Hunter had been making his way to Meldacio, two kids in tow, when their car had broken down in the rain. They’d been ambushed by daemons. He says, "Yes, I do," when he notices Noct hasn't opened his eyes. "Quite a tragedy."

"Yeah," Noct says, voice taut. "It really is. And, uhm. When I went in by myself, to get the supplies from the HQ? They had just brought them in. To get the, the bodies cleaned up. To bury them properly, Ezma said. And I just . . ." He cuts off. Throws an arm over his eyes.

Ignis waits.

"I can't stop seeing them. Their faces. And I should be doing more. I mean, if I had this all f-figured out, stuff like that . . . wouldn't be happening." He exhales, shaky. “It’s stupid. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before. But they were just, you know. Kids.”

“Ah,” says Ignis, softly, then pauses.

He doesn't say the first thing that comes to mind. That's another strategy he’s picked up over the years for situations like this; the more fraught the situation, the more instinctive responses he discards.

So he doesn’t say: “It’s not stupid.” Or “It’s not your fault.” Or “I wish you would have said something.” Or “It’s only natural to feel upset, after such a traumatic sight.” Or “We can secure a sleep aid for you.”

He doesn’t say those things because the problem with Ignis’s instinctual responses is that they all revolve around Noctis.

And that’s not what Noct wants. He wants to be able to help his people, and he feels like he can’t.

So instead, Ignis says, “We have been running across citizens experiencing car trouble with distressing regularity. I wonder if there might be a way to make car repair kits more readily available.”

The arm across Noct’s eyes flops back down onto the pillow beside him. He swallows. “Yeah. I mean, I don’t know if it would have been enough for that family, but it just seems like something everyone should have in the trunk. Especially now.”

“Certainly,” Ignis agrees. “The cost is not exceedingly prohibitive, but perhaps if they were ready to grab. Or available where Hunters get their marks.”

“Not just Hunters, though,” Noct says. “Anybody could get caught out. But we could leave some spares at Meldacio next time we go through. It’s . . . it’s not enough, but it’s something.”

Ignis hums in agreement.

Noct exhales, like some of the tension he’s been holding for the past week has finally left him. And then, he gives into the exhaustion of recent revival and falls asleep.

The sun’s been up for quite a while when Noct crawls out of the tent the next day, blanching in the bright sunlight. He’s groggy, per usual, but he’s lost the air of jittery exhaustion he’s exuded over the past few days.

“Look who decided to rise and shine,” Gladio says.

“Noct! Iggy made quiche and I stopped Gladio from eating your slice, you gotta try it, dude.”

Noct makes some kind of noise and grabs the plate of quiche from on top of the cooler. “Looks good,” he says. “Thanks, Iggy.”

“Hopefully it will keep you _egg_ -stra fueled for all the work on our plates today,” Ignis says.

“You’ve finally _cracked_ ,” Noct quips back, a wry smile curling up the corner of his mouth.

As he goes back to washing dishes in the tub of suds, Ignis thinks that perhaps, between the three of them, they've gotten Noct back on track.

**Author's Note:**

> I punted and went with egg puns, UGH. A quiche pun will now undoubtedly hit me in the middle of the night.


End file.
